Authors: Peter Stamm
Ivona is pregnant, said Hartmeier. I know, I said, I wasn’t going to allow him his little triumph. He looked at me in bewilderment. You cannot ask that she … He didn’t go on. I don’t ask that she do anything, I said. He said it would be a sin. I don’t care if it’s a sin or not, I’m not asking her to abort the fetus.
Hartmeier walked me to Ivona’s. Though he was shorter than me, he set such a rapid pace I could hardly keep up with him. It seemed to have gotten colder, or perhaps I was just feeling it more, because of my excitement and uncertainty. I put up my coat collar and ran after Hartmeier. He stopped outside Ivona’s building and said he wouldn’t accompany me any farther. He rang the doorbell, and I heard a rustle in the intercom. Hartmeier leaned down and said in his best conspiratorial tone, he’s here. Immediately the door buzzed, so loud that it startled me. Hartmeier shouldered the door open, gave me his hand, and nodded to me, as though to give me courage.
Ivona was waiting for me with an almost simple smile. She looks like a bride, I thought. We sat down in the little parlor. Ivona had made tea, and poured a couple of cups. I took a quick gulp and burned my mouth. Hartmeier told me you’re pregnant, I said. She nodded. I wasn’t expecting that, I said. She looked at me expectantly, with an edge of panic. I said I understood that an abortion was out of the question for her, and that of course I would recognize the child, and give her what support I could. But it wouldn’t be easy for her to bring up the child all by herself. Her face took on a scared expression. She must have imagined I would leave Sonia for her. There are several options, I said, of course it would be better for the child to grow up in an intact environment than with her, after all she was still an illegal alien. I would talk to my wife, after all it was my child. Ivona didn’t speak, and let her tea go cold. I said she ought to think about it, there was quite a bit of time yet.
The idea had come to me during the conversation with Hartmeier. Of course it would be a challenge to Sonia to bring up the child of my mistress. On the other hand, she was a sensible woman who had her head screwed on properly, and that solution was the best for all of us. We had already gone over the possibility of adopting a few times.
I didn’t do anything for the moment. Ivona was in her fourth month, and there was still a chance she would lose the baby, and the whole agitation would have been for nothing. I went on seeing her and sleeping with her, and watched her belly swell. She was even more taciturn than before, and talked neither about her condition nor about any plans for the child after its birth. Only sometimes she would groan and rub her back, which seemed to hurt. Once, when I was getting a glass of water in the kitchen, I saw an ultrasound picture lying on the table, it was a white crooked thing against a black background, but I got no sense of that as my child.
I kept putting off my conversation with Sonia. Finally I resolved to talk to her after the holidays. We spent Christmas with her parents, and then drove into the mountains for a few days by ourselves. Ferdy and Alice had recommended a hotel, a great castle of a place in a remote valley not far from Garmisch. They would come up for a couple of days themselves, we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. I had the sense that Sonia was looking forward to it more than I was. We had gone to the office quickly that morning, to sort out a few things, and we left Munich later than we’d planned. On the way Ferdy called me on my cell. I passed it to Sonia, and she talked to him. She laughed once or twice, and then she said, Oh well then, see you tomorrow. They would be coming a day late, she said, Ferdy evidently had even more to do than we did. Fine by me, I said.
We arrived in the early evening, and barely had time to look at our room before we heard the dinner gong. The dining room was full of families with nicely dressed children with good posture, talking quietly to their parents. Sonia had an expression I often saw on her when there were children around, a mixture of rapture and slight sorrow. Her last ovulation had been two weeks ago, I had spotted the red ring around the date on the kitchen calendar, but had gotten home that night later than expected, and Sonia had already been asleep. I wondered whether to wake her, but ended up just letting it go.
From the very beginning I didn’t feel at ease in the hotel. Sonia seemed to like it. This was her social sphere, people who were demonstratively hiding their wealth and treated the staff in such a jolly, friendly way that it almost had the effect of condescension. They all seemed to be playing a game, and observing themselves and one another. They were playing at high society, the cultivated art lovers, hurrying out of the dining room to the events hall to catch the chamber music concert, as if there were no other possible way of getting through an evening. Sonia didn’t want to miss the concert either, as she said. Please no, I said, I have to go outside for some fresh air, otherwise I’ll suffocate. She looked at me in alarm, as if she’d peered briefly into an abyss, but then she gave in right away, and said she had a headache, perhaps it was the altitude, and a walk would do her good.
It was cold outside, there was snow predicted for the night ahead, but the sky was still clear, with many stars and a waning moon. Sonia started to talk about a project we were working on. We’re on holiday, I said, forget about work for once, can’t you? I had thought long and hard about how to break the news to her, now I just said, listen, I’m having a baby. Sonia reacted amazingly calmly. It must have been that she had so many conflicting feelings that none of them came out on top. She had guessed that I had a lover, that seemed to bother her less than the fact it was Ivona, the Polish girl, as she always referred to her. I was amazed that her first thought was the same as mine. And that she used the same words I used with Ivona. After all, it’s your baby too.
I asked her if it wouldn’t be a problem for her. She said her only condition was that she wouldn’t have to meet the Polish girl. What if she wants to see the baby? That’s up to you. She said she wanted to go home. Right now?, I asked. I can’t drive you, I’ve had too much to drink. I haven’t, said Sonia. She didn’t want me with her anyway. She needed time to think. You can have your Polish woman come and stay. Her voice sounded cold rather than bitter. Sonia wouldn’t be talked out of her plan, and finally I handed her the car keys and helped her with the bags. I asked her to call when she got home.
Two hours later, she called. I had taken a bottle of wine up to the room, and was lying on the bed, watching TV. I hit the mute button when the phone rang. Sonia said she had arrived safely, then she stopped, but I could tell she wanted to talk. It seemed to be easier for her to talk to me on the phone. She said she’d thought things over during the drive.
We talked probably for two hours about our relationship, about our affairs, about our expectations and desires. Sonia cried, and at times I cried too. I had never felt so close to her. We won’t tell the child anything, will we?, she said. We’ll bring it up as ours. Are you looking forward to it? She stopped for a moment, then she said she wasn’t sure. She said she thought she was. You’ll make a wonderful mother, I said. She promised to drive back up in the morning, we had lots to talk about. Sleep well, I said. I love you.
The next day Sonia was back in the hotel. It had snowed overnight, and the last bit of the road hadn’t been cleared yet, and she’d been stuck down in the valley, waiting for the plow to come through. When she finally arrived, we greeted each other as though we hadn’t seen each other for ages. We went for a walk in the snow, and talked everything over again. We relished the reconciliation of the night by saying over and over what we’d done wrong, and how we meant to do better in the future, and what our life would be like, and how much we loved each other. Our words were conjurations, as though everything would go the way we wanted so long as we said it often enough. Aren’t we good together?, said Sonia. Yes, I said, everything will turn out fine. And at that moment I really believed it. It seemed possible in that landscape that had transformed itself overnight into a pure shiny surface.
Ferdy and Alice arrived in the afternoon. Sonia and I had lain down after lunch, we had neither of us gotten much sleep the previous night. At about four the phone rang. It was Ferdy, and we arranged to meet downstairs in the restaurant in half an hour.
I knew right away that it was a mistake to see those two up here. He had done the drive in five and a half hours, Ferdy bragged before we had even shaken hands. He had put on weight and lost a lot of his hair, and even though he talked and laughed the whole time, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong. Alice was even thinner than she’d been seven years ago. There was something careworn about her, and she seemed tired and irritable. She talked a lot too. She was still meeting lots of geniuses and going to astounding concerts and art exhibitions. There was so much more going on in Berlin than Munich, she said, returning to Bavaria always gave her the creeps. I asked her if she was still playing the violin. She wanted to take it up again, she said, once the kids were a little older. They had two girls they’d left with Ferdy’s parents on the way here, both, according to Alice, highly intelligent and exceptionally musical. Ferdy and Alice took turns telling stories about the girls, the funny things they said, the searching questions they asked, the profound utterances they made. After a while Alice asked whether we didn’t want any ourselves. I didn’t know what to say, but Sonia quickly put in that so far we hadn’t been able to. How old are you? Thirty-three. In that case you’ve got a bit of time yet, said Alice. She was pleased, even so, to have had her children so young. Ferdy laid his hand on her shoulder, and leaned right across the table as though to let us into a secret. Those girls, he said, are the best thing that could have happened to us. You can’t imagine it when you don’t have children yourself, said Alice, but it’s an incredible source of richness. Your priorities change, said Ferdy. Some things lose their significance. I wouldn’t want to raise children in Berlin, said Sonia.
Alice had a massage appointment. Ferdy asked if we fancied going to the sauna before dinner. I looked at Sonia. She said she didn’t, but there was no reason for me not to go. She’d meant to get on with some work anyway.
You’re still in pretty good shape, said Ferdy in the changing room, and he smacked his spare tire with his bare hand, I’ve put on some weight. Alice is a fabulous cook.
We had the sauna all to ourselves. Ferdy asked how business was, and I said we couldn’t complain. Berlin is an El Dorado, he said, if you’re half-presentable, then you can earn yourself a golden nose. He and his firm specialized in the construction of office buildings, maybe not the most thrilling things to build, but incredibly well paid. His clients thought strictly short-term, he said, buildings needed to be amortized within three years, nobody nowadays planned any further ahead than that. Good design was okay, but the critical factors were being on time and not going over budget.
He talked about the new type of contract where the price was set before the planning began. That way, if you kept costs down, you could make a hefty profit. The magic formula was guaranteed maximum price, and he got up to splash on some more water.
While we rested after the first round, he said Sonia was looking pretty good too. But she was never his cup of tea, too controlled, too cool. What did I think of Alice? I said nothing. She was still great in the sack, said Ferdy. Then he told me about a young woman journalist who had done an interview with him not long ago, and afterward gone for a meal with him. Then over dessert she said, what’s the point of sitting around here, why don’t you come back to my place and we’ll screw. He laughed deafeningly. That’s what young women are like these days. He had sat up and was rocking back and forth like a maniac. Everything about him, his way of talking and moving, had something driven about it, restless, that I disliked. After the second go-round in the sauna, I said I’d had enough, and we’d see each other at dinner.
I didn’t go upstairs to the room, I went outside. I stood in the darkness in front of the hotel and smoked a cigarillo, and asked myself what the difference was between Ferdy and me. I was driven too, and maybe even more than he was. He had bedded the journalist as if it meant nothing, the two of them had enjoyed a couple of pleasurable hours, and that was it. No hard feelings, as Ferdy said. If anyone had behaved like a son of a bitch, then surely it was me. And yet my relationship with Ivona seemed less contemptible to me than Ferdy’s casual fuck. It was as though Ivona’s love and anguish did something to ennoble me, and give our relationship a seriousness that Ferdy’s infidelity lacked.
Do you ever hear from Rüdiger?, Ferdy asked over dinner. I shook my head, and was pretty dumbfounded when Sonia said yes, she sometimes talked to him on the phone. What’s he up to? He’s working in a think tank in Switzerland, said Sonia, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was about. Something futurological, the private realm, or evolving forms of cohabitation. That’s so typical of him, said Ferdy, anything rather than work.
When I was in bed with Sonia later on, I asked her why she’d never told me she was in touch with Rüdiger. I was the last person who could afford to be jealous, she said. I’m not jealous, I just think it’s odd, after all, he’s my friend as well. I got the impression you didn’t like him, said Sonia. Of course I like him. Things hadn’t been easy for Rüdiger. He had fallen in love with a Swiss art student. Maybe you remember her, she was there at the New Year’s Eve party. Was that the crazy woman who was working on bread? No idea, said Sonia, I didn’t talk to her that night. Elsbeth, I said, that’s what her name was.
Rüdiger had met Elsbeth on his tour of South America; he traveled around with her for a while and then brought her back to Munich. She had applied to the Academy of Arts there, but hadn’t gotten in, so she’d gone back to Switzerland. Rüdiger followed her and lived with her in an artists’ commune in a farmhouse somewhere in the sticks. Full of people, said Sonia, who don’t know what they’re about, and who spend half the day high, and call themselves artists, without ever accomplishing anything. I’ve no idea what Rüdiger saw in the lifestyle. He never got his degree. Instead he’d tried his hand at art as well; along with Elsbeth and the others, he’d run up some socially critical installations in public space somewhere, and scrounged off his parents the whole time.